


Right partner

by postmodernmulticoloredcloak



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postmodernmulticoloredcloak/pseuds/postmodernmulticoloredcloak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. He curses this universe where he has to wait for a right partner, he has to go looking for a right partner. He hates that word, “right”. Who decides what’s right and what’s not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right partner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. When he walks through the neighborhood and he sees girls around him, he sometimes gets lost in thought, wondering if the right partner is one of them. They don’t even seem to see him. Steve sighs, crushed by the awareness that, like, two people in his life have ever seen him - his mother and his best friend. He curses the lack of women who see him, he curses his inability to make himself be seen.

“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. Soft music fills the air from the record player in the corner of the room. He imagines himself dancing to the music, holding the right partner in his arms. He realizes he can’t quite imagine himself as the one holding a dance partner. Being held by another person, however, is easier to imagine. He curses his small stature and body structure, because a man shouldn’t feel like he’d be a better fit for the smaller partner in a dance.

“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself, and he tries to make up the girl of his dreams in his head. She has dark hair, definitely. She has intense eyes, yes. She’s sweet and strong and stubborn too, although not as stubborn as him because, well, he knows he’s maybe a little too stubborn. She’s kind and caring and passionate about things, she keeps him grounded and saves him from bullies when- No. Steve curses his mind because he should be the one protecting his girl, not the other way round, a man shouldn’t need his partner to protect him.

“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. He curses this universe where he has to wait for a right partner, he has to go looking for a right partner. He hates that word, “right”. Who decides what’s right and what’s not? He curses the very concept that there is to be a right partner and that he doesn’t have the attitude to just allow himself to pick a partner that’s not right.

“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. He tries to stifle his sobs against his pillow, cursing himself for not being able to find a partner that’s right, instead he just keeps filling his head with thoughts of someone that’s not right, that’s not available for him, that he has no chance to have a future with because that’s how things are, he was born like this and he has to suffer the consequences of a world where he just… can’t. Can’t do a lot of things.

“I’m waiting for the right partner,” Steve tells himself. A person that counts. A person he’ll be able to marry and have children with and grow old with - well, as old as his fragile health allows him. A person he’ll be able to share his life with in a way that counts. That’s what a right partner is, he’s aware of that.

“I want a right partner,” Steve tells himself cursing his loneliness, his way of going through the motions like he doesn’t belong, like nothing counts, like no one really sees him.

Peggy makes him happy. She’s so close to his ideal of the right partner.

“She’s the right partner,” Steve tells himself. “She counts.”

Yet he lies awake at night cursing the world where there are things that don’t count. Things that are not right.

How can some things not count, Steve asks himself. He watches Bucky’s profile, illuminated by the moonlight that filters through the tent. How can some things not be right? How can some partners not be the right ones? How can the way Bucky snuggles against him when they’re on the couch of their apartment not count? How can the way Bucky sinks his face into Steve’s neck not be right? The way Bucky comes home exhausted after working extra hours to be able to afford Steve’s medications, the way Bucky’s head bobs as he tries to stay awake during the night where coughs shake Steve’s body. Bucky’s pancakes that always turn out right and Steve’s pancakes that usually turn out burnt. The chuckles and snorts and scoffs Bucky lets out while they’re listening to the radio, the open laughs he lets out when Steve makes some sarcastic comment about the thing they’ve just heard. The light, little kisses they share with their hands intertwined together, the songs Bucky hums as Steve lies with his head on Bucky’s chest and Bucky slowly brushes his fingers along his spine. The way Bucky’s lips part and tremble and he bites them until he opens his mouth wide with a gasp. The way Bucky growls and grinds his teeth as he leaves scratches on Steve’s tights or moans softly as he brushes Steve’s belly with his lips. The way Bucky sometimes gets mad at him and pouts and doesn’t talk to him until he forgets he’s not supposed to be talking to him and then groans at himself. The way sometimes Bucky is tired and sad and curls in a corner and Steve curls next to him and they just stay there without saying anything. The way they lie on the bed and rub each other’s feet, the way their hands drift away from the feet. The way Bucky lets Steve decide what to do next, warm and pliant under Steve’s body until they’re breathless and sluggish and Bucky wraps him in his arms and strokes Steve’s hair.

How can that be “not right”?

He cares deeply about Peggy, he does. But maybe the thing that is missing from his life at this point isn’t a right partner, and a right partner won’t make everything all right. He makes a different choice and asks Peggy to respect it. Bucky might not have been right, but living without Bucky doesn’t feel right either.

Then he wakes up in a world where Bucky would count as a right partner, but Bucky’s not there.

“Then finish it, ‘cos I’m with you till the end of the line,” Steve says, and he can see something in Bucky’s eyes, and he realizes that all those things did count after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Sara/officialcroissookie/GhostMirror for being an awesome beta :)


End file.
